Love Street, June 1968 / Happy Birthday, America!

Well, once again, I've been neglecting my blog for Summer play and Summer chores, but so it goes. Today, I thought I'd share an interesting underground with a topical cover, Happy Birthday, America.

 

I don't know much about this publication and take the date from the gentleman that sold it to me. Coming out of the Haight-Ashbury, this pub shows a tendency towards art and poetry. There is some political content (including a grisly page reprinted from Vietnam GI) but the emphasis is towards the arts and maybe towards pages that can be used as posters. I love the red and blue inks on this issue. I do not know any details about this paper other than the fact that I found reference to issue 2 from September of 1967. They must be somewhat scarce, as I've only ever run across this single issue on ebay.

I offer two versions of the scan. Here is the edited version, and here is the raw scan. It was so highly processed, I offer the raw scan in case it better captures the feel of the pub.

A few samples. The back side of the centerfold, a Declaration of Cultural Evolution.

And the centerfold, a great printing of Wally Wood's Disneyland Memorial Orgy 

Wally Wood is bar none one of my favorite comics (and pulp!) artists and I get a real kick out of this piece, Disneyland Memorial Orgy (wiki). He did not admit to drawing this poster til years later. After sitting through Cinderella 3 (a straight to video item I believe, along with such ill advised sequels as Dumbo 2, Bambi 2, etc), I smile at the dollar signs emanating from the castle in the background. The underground had some other run-ins with Disney including a suit over Air Pirate Funnies, though I think it's only natural to play with such weighty and weightless icons. Today, I see artists tooling around with the Simpsons in such a fashion, perhaps Mickey has lost some of his centrality. (There will be some lampooning of Disney's characters in the Ballyhoo I share next time, so Disney had inspired dirty lampooning for decades before the underground got to him).

And lastly, the back cover

 

Next: Ballyhoo!!!